Politics & Religion

Religious Affiliation

Nearly two thirds (64%) of Asian American men indicated a non-religious affiliation including "Atheist", "Agnostic", or "Nothing in particular". Of the remaining, the top religious affiliations included Buddhist, Catholic, Mainline and Evangelical Protestant, Muslim, and Hindu. East Asian men were more likely to be Atheist (26%), Southeast Asian men were more likely to be Catholic (18%) and Buddhist (13%) and South Asian men were more likely to be Hindu (25.8%) and Muslim (14%) though no sub-ethnicity had more than 55% responding with a specific religious affiliation.

Importance of Religion

​On a whole, religion is not particularly valued. When asked "how important is religion / spirituality to you?" 38% of all men indicating religion indicated “Not at all important”. This did not vary by geography, naturalization status, or income. Age did play a role: over 35 years old were more likely to indicate that religion was important, scoring 2.74 on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being “extremely important” compared men under 34 years old (2.2)

There were also minor differences in sub-ethnicity: ​However, Southeast Asian men stood out as having a higher average importance score (2.6) compared to South and East Asian (2.2, 2.17) with Mixed Race men in the middle (2.5).

Political Affiliation

When asked to state their political affiliation, over half of Asian American men responded Democrat (62%), another third responded Independent (33%) and only a small fraction said Republican (5%). There were two significant factors that mediated these findings:

Industry: People working in Tech were slightly more likely to be Democrats, while men working in Finance (though a fairly small sample of 30 people) were 3x more likely to be Republican than average.

Age: men between 24-34 years old were slightly more likely to be Democrats (67%) while men over 35 were 50% more likely to be Independents compared to average, and much less likely to be Democrat.

Political affiliation was not affected by geography, naturalization status, sub-ethnicity, or income.

Voter Registration

The vast majority of men in our study were eligible and registered to vote (82%) while a tenth were not registered (9%) and the remainder (8%) were ineligible to vote because they were not US citizens.

Presidential CandidateOverall, two thirds of all men indicated they would vote for Hillary Clinton (66%) and only 5% said they were voting for Donald Trump. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson gathered a combined 4%, and another 9% were still undecided. There was another 5% of folks who wrote in responses and their sentiments were of people frustrated by both candidates. Men said they were writing in Bernie Sanders, or protest voting, or not voting because they didn't like either candidate.

Age - there were some meaningful differences in voting preference depending on age. Men over 35 were more likely to vote for Donald Trump (9.8%) and Jill Stein (5.4%), while men between 25-34 years old were more likely to vote Hillary above all other age groups (71%). Men under 25 were least likely to vote third party (1.4% combined) and more likely to be undecided (12.2%).

Geography - there were also meaningful difference in voting preference based on geography. The West Coast was least likely to vote Trump (1.8%) while the rest of the country was less likely to vote Hillary (58%) and more likely to vote Trump (10%)

Industry - as a minor note, despite having more Independents and Republicans, 60% of the men in Finance were planning to vote for Hillary and none of them indicated they were voting for Trump, though 20% of them were undecided, a much higher percentage than seen elsewhere.

Income and sub-ethnicity did not have a significant effect on voting preferences.